Fat Bald Jeff Read online

  “Cinch,” he said, stretching out in the Edith Bunker chair. It ranks a distant second in comfort behind the disco couch, but he punctured our beanbag chair at Christmas when a situation arose between a fondue fork and a jilted stenographer, and we haven’t replaced it with anything yet.

  “Want to order pizza?” he asked.

  “I can’t,” I said. “The Lemming’s coming to pick me up for dinner.”

  Val made a horrible retching sound which I chose to ignore.

  “And where—”

  I interrupted. “Blue Point Oyster Bar. Grilled amberjack with pecan sauce and julienned sweet potatoes. Two V&Ts before dinner, whatever wine he orders with the fish. Coffee. Key lime pie. And a to-go cup for the rest of the vodka.”

  Val stroked his mustache and nodded. He understands that after a childhood of eating kelp and sand and leaves with the parents, I need to eat quality meals more often than others of our miserable class.

  “Help me find a frock?” I asked. He agreed and followed me into the closet in my bedroom. Val Wayne is all man, but he has impeccable taste in women’s clothes.

  I held a powder-blue velvet jumper with frilly cravat in front of me.

  He shielded his eyes with his hand as though the sight caused him physical pain. “Ugh, you’ll look more like Austin Powers than you already do.” A comment directed at my buckteeth and occasional need for horn-rimmed spectacles.

  “Right,” I said, throwing it on the floor and selecting another. “How about this? Vintage nineteen-forties beige silk with white ruffled placket and darling little gloves to match.”

  “Again with the ruffles. What, are you having high tea with the count of Monte Cristo?”

  He was ruthless, but I craved it, like a prize-fighter craves his corner man’s insults. He nixed the black lace with mantilla (“bullfighter’s widow”), the ice-blue twin set and pleated skirt (“librarian”), the green georgette crepe (“brown-noser at ladies’ garden party”), and slightly stained pink organdy (“bedraggled slut”). He pushed me aside, dove in, and dredged up my champagne-colored sheath with silver lace overlay and ostrich feather hemline.

  “Sexy yet oddball,” he said. “The Lemming will act kind of embarrassed when you walk into the restaurant, but secretly he’ll be into it.”

  I am uncertain if that’s the reaction I’m looking for. Fending off the advances of a horny Lemming is a task too disgusting for words, but as my closet is so barren, I have no choice.

  The rest of my toilette took only a minute, as I daresay I am young enough to go about fresh-faced with just a smear of lipstick. Emerged from the bathroom to present myself to Val. He asked if I’d been sprinkling arsenic on my cereal in the morning. Sometimes I find his cryptic comments annoying.

  The doorbell rang promptly at eight, and I buzzed the Lemming in. Val quickly made himself busy at the hi-fi, throwing on his favorite Deep Purple album.

  Martin Lemming looked his usual provincial self, boring black shoes, suit, white shirt, and rep tie. His strands of hair had been freshly laundered and parted an inch over his right ear. Let’s call a spade a spade; he’s balding. He also suffered an adolescent acne problem. It’s all cleared up now, though when he leans in for a kiss I am forced to stare into the craters of fifteen-year-old pockmarks. In the Lemming’s defense, I must admit that he is tall and virtually odorless. He is also the richest man I’ve ever known.

  “Lemming,” greeted Val.

  “Val Wayne Newton,” rejoined the Lemming. Val bristled at the taboo use of his full name. “Doing some hair farming?” Martin continued. “The ’stache is coming in nicely.” I hurried the Lemming into the kitchen before fisticuffs broke out.

  “Martin, darling,” I breathed, kissing the air near one desperate-looking pit. “A drink?”

  He chose a beer and struggled to twist off its cap. He has the smooth, milky fingers of an heir. My hands, I am sickened to note, are as gnarled as a harpy’s claws, callused from the proletarian exertion of copyediting. I gulped another tequila as he appraised me like a choice rump roast. I shall never question Val’s assessment of the power of the frock.

  Martin shouted, “Ready to go?” over the third repetition of “Smoke on the Water.” I nodded, filling up Grandmother’s silver flask. As he downed the rest of his beer, complaining about our lack of recycling bins, I dashed about in search of a handbag to hold the flask. Luckily, I found my old rayon clutch under the disco couch. Score! I’d forgotten I left an airplane bottle of Tanqueray in it last year.

  Said good-bye to Val, who was studying his mustache in the bathroom mirror.

  “Hair farming,” he muttered. “That pompous ass. He should rotate his own crops.”

  Agreed. If I could transplant the Lemming’s nostril and ear fur to his scalp, he’d have hair as lush as a meadow of creeping phlox.

  I told Val his mustache was really grand; he looked just like Lionel Richie midsize afro and all. He slammed the bathroom door in my face! I don’t see why he should be so upset. Lionel Richie is one of the age’s great balladeers.

  I’m all for airplane bottles of gin. I never included Tanqueray in my repertoire before, but now that I’ve experienced the full effect of its properties, I shall make more room for it under the sink. Val threw a bottle of ginger brandy under there ages ago that can go in the rubbish when he’s not looking.

  Martin appeared mortified as I exited the car at the curb and tripped over my black velvet cape. He maintains that no one wears capes these days, but to me it’s the obvious choice with silver lace and ostrich plumes. The wretched false Burberry is hardly appropriate.

  I gave the hayseeds at the bar quite an eyeful. As Val Wayne had predicted, the Lemming propelled me over to a two-top in a dark corner, where he could ogle me in peace. As the drinks came, he launched into a dull monologue on superior restaurants in New York. The gin made it bearable.

  When I’m with the Lemming, I find myself adding up his faults, weighing them against his advantages. I want to be sure I’m not wasting my time. His complexion is lumpy and variegated, and he doesn’t get along with my best friend. Val in fact is my only friend and could not possibly be replaced with an oafish dullard like the Lemming. But I need to consider my future. Unless I am prepared for a lifetime of drudge labor, I will have to select a suitable husband. Martin is not, after all, hideously deformed. There is even a rakish attractiveness to his thin slot-mouth. He is intelligent and has conventional good taste. I agree with him on the principle of converting to an aristocracy, as long as they put me in the right class. You see, there is much to be said for our compatibility, as well as his tremendous stock portfolio.

  If ever I falter in my resolve to marry the financially correct man, I need only summon the memory of my idiot father. He was too sensitive, with the artistic temperament so common to the nouveau pauvre. Only a frustrated potter would haul his family through the desolate dregs of this country in a ridiculous Volkswagen minibus for years, selling homeopathic remedies and singing songs. Disgusting! I was fifteen when he finally turned that hunk of junk toward home, but by then my sanity hung by a single flimsy thread.

  Even though Mother has since taken up with the lumbering Swede, she claims to have warm memories of Father and his free-living ways. I say memories are fine for stuffing in silver picture frames, but they don’t line the wallet or fill the dinner plates—even the misshapen ones the old man fired in the kiln. Mother still lives like a peasant. Only instead of trolling the commune and growing hydroponic rutabagas, she’s tailgating Bears games and mending Jann’s giant underpants.

  “Two gin fizzes,” Martin ordered after the plates had been cleared away.

  I looked at the waitress. “That sounds good. I’ll have the same.”

  “I suppose you want dessert,” he said. I nodded enthusiastically.

  “Well, we could share something,” he murmured, perusing the dessert menu. Even though he’s loaded, he can be shamefully tightfisted.

  I frowned. “Why shoul
d I share when I can have one of my own?” Stupid Lemming. I pushed his floppy wrist off my thigh.

  He let me eat my own slice of key lime pie while he visually gorged himself on my décolletage.

  “You know, Addie,” he breathed huskily, adenoids and all, “I love your clavicle.”

  I looked down at the slim little bone jutting out of my champagne sheath. I commented how nice a strand of matinee-length pearls would look cascading over it, but he just flailed for the waitress.

  I escaped his clutches at my front door. I was not in the mood for a palsied tango, and anyway, his breath smelled like smoked chubs. I told him to order the Dover sole, but the chubs cost three dollars less.

  Val Wayne was getting it on with one of his numerous lady friends on the disco couch. I have entered upon this scene so often that it fails to shock me anymore. He raised his head and asked how my evening went.

  I elaborated on the vagaries of the seafood trade and the dressing up of fatty fish in general. Val agreed that no reasonable person should be forced to share one’s dessert, no matter how much the meal cost. For a second I thought his playmate underneath gave me the ol’ crook-eye, but I expect she was merely twitching in discomfort with her ankle way up there.

  I retired to my bed, a worn-out husk. Dates with the Lemming can be so exhausting. But I suppose when we’re married I’ll learn to suffer his conversation and amorous groping, as do wives all over the world.

  Turned on the radio to the inoffensive vocal standards station and read a dozen pages of Anthony Trollope before Val barged in.

  “Heard the dentist music and wanted to come in and say good night.”

  “Lady friend gone?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed. “She got a charley horse and kicked me in the head.”

  Imagine getting a charley horse in the throes of passion! It lacks dignity.

  “I heard you wrestling with the Lemming at the front door,” he said. “Why don’t you just give in?”

  Involuntarily, I wrinkled my nose and frowned.

  “Why no sex? I mean, he’s repulsive, but you’re so repressed, I think you need it.”

  “We have plenty of sexual tension,” I replied. “He says my clavicle is his favorite part of my body.”

  Val agreed that my clavicle was my most attractive feature. But then Val has said I look like the skeleton hanging in our old high school biology lab.

  “He’s sure wasting a lot of money on you for nothing,” he observed.

  “Why do you think he takes me to all those nice restaurants?” I said. The Lemming is not without guile, but he has no idea what he’s up against. I can hold out for years. He’ll get his nauseating reward when he slips those four carats on my ring finger.

  Val Wayne went to bed and I turned off the light. I laid there for ages, longing for sleep. My petty sexual dramas are a great source of hilarity for Val. Switched the radio station, looking for operatic love songs, but came upon the Metal Madness show. A song by Metallica assaulted me. Its rapid, pulsing bass line was a sound that usually sent me scrambling for my Neil Diamond records, but tonight it soothed me to sleep like a lullaby.

  Chapter 2

  Saturday passed in its usual dull fashion. I’ve outgrown the childish excitement that others feel for the weekend. For me it’s just a break in the schedule, like when prisoners get sent out in the yard. Saturday night found me ironing sheets and rehemming my apron. Ever since they changed the stylish length of skirts this year, I’ve been forced to adapt my wardrobe. Val went to the movies with the tenants in 2F. He issued a weak invitation as he tied his shoes in the hallway, but I declined. The 2F boys have been snubbing me since they moved in last summer. I don’t know why. I brought them a plate of sugar-free wheat-flour brownies as a housewarming present and was kind enough to warn them of the hazards presented by their mountain of work boots at the top of the stairs.

  But once Sunday dawned I felt a thousand times better. Grandmother would be roasting a brisket and mashing potatoes while I poured out gallons of Strawberry Hill. I’m relieved that we don’t have to dine with Mother. The last time she came with me to Grandmother’s, she brought Jann uninvited. Grandmother said it was fine—that she would just run out to the store and pick up another roast beef, and for us not to worry about her; the snow had almost stopped. I thought that was very gracious of her, considering Mother just foisted the bullock boyfriend on us without a moment’s notice. When it was time to eat, Grandmother insisted that Jann take the big comfy chair because she liked to stand while eating.

  Mother had said, “For Christ’s sake, Mother Prewitt.” Grandmother smiled gently and put her fingertips to her temple, squinting a bit, and said she had a ripping headache, but for us to go on and eat while she laid down in the bedroom.

  Mother slammed down her fork and roared, “Come on, Jann!” Then she stared at me as though I was supposed to get up and desert Grandmother and the brisket. The tension between us was as solid as the roast’s antique salver, but the silence broke as she stomped out with the Viking in tow. Poor Grandmother emerged timidly from the bedroom a second later and sat down with me at the table. She picked up the fork Mother had thrown down.

  “Reed and Barton,” she sighed, fingering the engraving. “What a shame she bent the tines. It was a wedding present and all that I have left of your grandfather.”

  I reminded her that she had seventy-one other pieces in the set, but she just smiled sadly and shook her head, carving herself a tremendous slice of roast beef.

  Thank God there would be no dramatic scenes at Gran’s this time. My system is very delicate and can’t properly digest amid emotional outbursts from the family. Frankly, I sometimes doubt my Anglo-Saxon ancestry when faced with the absolutely Sicilian theatrics that go on at family dinners.

  Played my favorite Yanni album at top volume. It’s a recording of his live concert at the Acropolis, the one where the music made Linda Evans cry. Soaked the label off the wine bottle. Val threw open his bedroom door and stumbled out into the kitchen. He wore silk boxers and a Styx T-shirt. His mustache was completely disheveled.

  “It’s nine in the morning,” he groaned. Val sets aside Sunday mornings to recover from his hangovers, and dislikes when Yanni and I intrude. I think it’s disgraceful how 2F always talks him into buying all the rounds at the Slavering Goat.

  Val collapsed on the disco couch. Even though he abandoned me for 2F last night, I still felt a little sorry about his hangover, so I mixed him a Bloody Mary. We were out of Worcestershire; I used A-1 instead.

  Weather was wretchedly cold but clear. The knockoff Burberry was defenseless against the wind. My teeth chattered on the El all the way up to Evanston, and an indecent old lech offered to warm me up with his rough workingman’s hands. Revolting! The Red Line train usually attracts a better class of rider. I shall write a letter to the Chicago Transit Authority on office letterhead tomorrow to complain.

  Grandmother’s house is two stinking blocks from the El station, so I had to run in the cold all the way there. She has a yellow 1968 Valiant in her garage with four hundred miles on it and has never offered to pick me up. Once, in a snowstorm, I begged her for a ride back to the city, but she took so long to gather up her map, flares, CALL POLICE sign, pepper spray, lap rug, and thermos of mulled cider that I just left her in the garage and took the train.

  A rush of happiness washed over me as Grandmother’s house came into view. I always considered this home, instead of the mud and straw grotto my parents made us live in. Our house looked like one of Father’s ill-formed bowls. My grandparents’ house was refreshingly simple, with its cedar shingles and porch swing and clematis climbing up the arbor. If one considers this charming house or looks at old pictures of Father, one cannot deny that he was at some point a normal member of society. What could possibly have attracted him to Mother, or vice versa? The Prewitts said my parents met at a stock-car race where Mother lured strange men under the bleachers to smoke p
ot and feel around under her macramé vest. The Andersons said Father wandered into their yard one night and fell into the pool, high on jimsonweed. Whatever the truth, an attraction developed between them, Father embraced Mother’s idle lifestyle, and a short time later she found herself preggers, sending them both into a descending paralysis from which neither ever recovered. I’m not proud of my humble origins, but there they are.

  When I was born, Grandmother completely redecorated my father’s old bedroom for me. It’s still set up like that now, with white eyelet curtains and gingham sheets on the canopy bed, wallpaper with yellow irises, and bookshelves filled with Nancy Drew and photos of Father’s old girlfriends. Mother turned my old bedroom into a workout center for Jann. He tosses dingy towels and jungle-patterned sports pants in the corner where my thin mattress once lay.

  I greeted Grandmother in the kitchen, then hung my coat in the hall closet. Grandmother has a divine fox fur in there, sealed in a garment bag that has not been unzipped in nearly twenty years. When I was a little girl, my grandparents had a Christmas party. They invited all their geriatric friends and neighbors, and Mother, Father, and me. Cranky Aunt Jane refused to attend, as Father’s patchouli always gave her a migraine. The parents came under duress, since that year they were railing about crass commercialism and oppressive Christian holidays. Driving over in our lousy rusted Volvo, Mother sulked in the passenger seat while Father jerked the broken steering wheel around.

  “If they start in on us,” Mother began to hiss, but Father cut her off with a meaningful look. I feigned ignorance while listening very carefully and playing with my homemade, genderless, non-race-specific doll.

  He whispered, “They want to see Addie, and besides, Dad is lending us rent.”

  I’m sure my grandparents couldn’t have been more pleased to see us traipse in an hour late, Mother draped in her wrath-of-God sari, hair hanging like two mangled jute cords from her flaky scalp, and Father drifting about in harem pants, his buttonless paisley tunic clasped in front by a small, crudely fashioned placard that read I DON’T BELIEVE IN YOUR GOD, BUT I’LL TAKE THE PRESENTS.